This study aimed to explore undergraduates' perceptions of relevance in conjunction with two associated constructs, personal interest, and task value. To unearth these perceptions, American (n = 104) and Dutch (n = 79) students completed the Conceptualization of Relevance Task (CoRT). This task required them to: (a) select a graphic that best…

Teachers play a fundamental role in guaranteeing an inclusive teaching practice using Educational Robotics (ER). However, they may hold gender-differentiated views of their students' academic abilities and aptitudes in ER. This quasi-experimental test investigated gender-differentiated attributions and behavioral intentions of N = 158 Italian…

Research has shown that teachers' autonomy support and provision of structure relate to students' agentic and behavioral engagement. Moreover, agentic engagement elicits higher teacher autonomy support. In the present 5-week diary study, we investigated the dynamic nature of this interplay between teachers and students through their…

This study investigated the predictive validity of school-subject-specific self-concepts of ability, intrinsic task values, and cost (operationalized as task effort) for motivation regarding unclassified novel learning content--a fictional project management course--as a function of perceived similarity between school subject and novel learning…

Adolescents' academic achievement goals are associated with their perceptions of teacher and peer goals. Earlier research focused on perceived teacher goals, mostly disregarding perceived peer goals' effects. However, since peer-group influence becomes prominent during adolescence, research on students' perceptions of both peer and teacher goals…

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the population invariance of equating functions across country subgroups in TIMSS 2015 mathematics tests in relation to the raw-score distribution, DIF, and DTF. We used equipercentile and IRT observed-score equating methods. The results of the study indicate that there is a relationship between the…

Using data from 4047 adolescents in three countries, this study was designed to investigate the associations between two important components of the learning process: academic motivation and student engagement. To increase the precision and accuracy of these analyses, preliminary analyses were conducted to identify the optimal measurement…

The Learning and Study Strategies Inventory (LASSI; Weinstein et al., "Learning and study strategies inventory." H&H Publishing, 1987) is a prominent instrument used in thousands of institutions worldwide as an educational and research tool. Despite its widespread prevalence, there are inconsistencies regarding the underlying latent…

Tests in educational contexts often start with easy tasks, assuming that this fosters positive experiences--a sense of control, higher valuing of the test, and more positive and less negative emotions. Although intuitive and widespread, this assumption lacks an empirical basis and a theoretical framework. We conducted a field experiment and…

Students' engagement in class stems from academic and social motivations, which can be expressed through their academic and social achievement goals. Using a person-centered approach, we investigated the configurations of academic and social achievement goals and their relevance for aspects of students' academic (achievement, self-concept, goal…

Grounded in self-determination theory, this study examined the explanatory role of teachers' need-based experiences in the association between teachers' perceived social pressure (i.e., from the principal, colleagues, and students) and their personal adjustment and motivating teaching style. In total, 482 secondary school teachers (M age = 39.9…

Adaptive teacher support (i.e., support that is tailored to students' understanding) is considered crucial for students' learning. Previous research examined support adaptivity mostly in small-scale, observational studies without distinguishing between theory-based facets of support adaptivity. Yet, students' perceptions of different aspects of…

The aim of this longitudinal study was to examine the differences between high- and low-performing students' development of fraction proficiency over a school year and to investigate how those differences were related to instruction in fractions versus instruction in other mathematics topics. The data for this study were drawn from a group of (n =…

Teacher judgments about student achievement may be biased by factors that go beyond students' actual achievement. Emotional and behavioral disorder (EBD), which is characterized by behavioral problems yet unimpaired general cognitive abilities, may be one such biasing characteristic on student level. Moreover, bias may depend on characteristics at…

Studies on utility value, metacognitive strategies, and achievement have usually examined these variables in a static manner. However, each of these variables changes across time and the relationships among them are dynamic. Hence, studies that examine changes in individual trajectories (change in each variable over time) and concurrent…